A Gesture of Solidarity

UPDATE:Thank you for signing our solidarity statement and supporting those facing political repression. We have a long and rough journey ahead of us but we are inspired by the outpouring of support that we have already received with more than 250 organizations signing on. As of Thursday, the grand jury date for people subpoenaed in Portland and Olympia has been pushed back to August 30th. We will be planning more actions in the coming weeks to support those resisting the grand jury. Please check the website to keep up to date.

Until that time, there are still several ways people can show support, please pass these on to the members of your organizations, your personal networks, and other people you think might be interested in supporting us:

1) Come to Seattle on August 30th to support those resisting the grand jury.

2) Donate money to support the legal costs and provide material support for those resisting the grand jury and the investigation. Click on the donate tab at the top of the page.

3) If you can’t come to Seattle on August 30th, plan a solidarity action in your own community. Email us and let us know if you are planning something.

AFFECT is a grouping of radicals based in New York City. We wish to add our voice to those denouncing the recent terroristic raids carried out on comrades’ homes in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the related federal grand jury, obviously intended to intimidate.

Battering rams, flash grenades, helicopters, search warrants, wrong houses . . . it shouldn’t surprise us that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Joint Terrorism Task Force have taken an interest in our comrades in the Pacific Northwest, but that their investigations are apparently most interested in our clothes and books seems a little disproportionate to such a show of force.

That our philosophical curiosities, potential politics, supposed ideologies might themselves be seen as some crime, means that more than ever, we should acknowledge that our movements towards liberation are real. We shouldn’t let the state take us more seriously than we take ourselves.

The illusions and pretensions of liberal democracy are rapidly dissolving in the heat of this clash of classes. Our abilities to express ourselves, form opinions, associate with others, to simply have friends – those basic “rights” we’re supposed to feel grateful for – are under constant attack. Prisons are overflowing with young Blacks, Latinos, and the poor, with the revolts inside multiplying. So-called “immigrants” who dare to ignore spurious divides imposed by the state are being imprisoned and deported by the millions. Muslims, as well as political dissenters, are finding themselves spied on, harassed, and locked in cages, too.

The United States government is increasingly centered on something it calls “Homeland Security,” seemingly oblivious to the various nightmares conjured up by this term, disasters that prided themselves on creating a “secure” – sealed and pure – “homeland.” Is it any surprise that anarchists, those who consider themselves to be without a homeland – or at least, without a state – should be targeted by the vast, cancerous police apparatus dedicated to “homeland security”? That this apparatus would attack those who understand that their real enemies – those who would control their lives – are not overseas, but at the summits of power in this country? More and more, the US finds itself in the clutches of a prison-security-industrial complex.

The US has long harassed, intimidated, imprisoned, and deported those it has seen as a threat to its interests. And its interests are now to defend a system that has brought a level of economic and social inequality unseen for generations. The state’s only response to our resistance against austerity and crisis is repression and brutality, all opportunities for economic re-integration having been exhausted.

We’d like to think that this attempt at intimidation will fail; that every act of state repression only increases our resolve. But for this to be real, our friends, spaces, projects, networks, groups, collectives, assemblies, will need to create even stronger shows of resistance and refusal; to activate and mobilize even more, or else we will continue to suffer such abuses. This should extend beyond signing statements, writing texts, sending messages to one another, dropping banners, spray-painting slogans, keying a cop car, etc. We will do all this and more, but let’s also commit ourselves to organizing against these conditions we’re in. This commitment is the only solidarity worth having. True solidarity means rejecting compromises with the system and immersing ourselves ever deeper in the struggles of our comrades and all the oppressed.

We are committed to supporting our comrades, those engaged in struggle against this world. Our love and solidarity goes out to those who find themselves on the front lines in Olympia, Portland, and Seattle.

On Wednesday July 25th, the FBI conducted a series of coordinated raids against activists in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. They subpoenaed several people to a special federal grand jury, and seized computers, black clothing and anarchist literature. This comes after similar raids in Seattle in July and earlier raids of squats in Portland.

Though the FBI has said that the raids are part of a violent crime investigation, the truth is that the federal authorities are conducting a political witch-hunt against anarchists and others working toward a more just, free, and equal society. The warrants served specifically listed anarchist literature as evidence to be seized, pointing to the fact that the FBI and police are targeting this group of people because of their political ideas. Pure and simple, these raids and the grand jury hearings are being used to intimidate people whose politics oppose the state’s agenda. During a time of growing economic and ecological crises that are broadly affecting people across the world, it is an attempt to push back any movement towards creating a world that is humane, one that meets every person’s needs rather than serving only the interests of the rich.

This attack does not occur in a vacuum. Around the country and around the world, people have been rising up and resisting an economic system that puts the endless pursuit of profit ahead of the basic needs of humanity and the Earth. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement to now Anaheim, people are taking to the streets. In each of these cases, the state has responded with brutal political repression. This is not a coincidence. It is a long-term strategy by state agencies to stop legitimate political challenges to a status quo that exploits most of the world’s people.

We, the undersigned, condemn this and all other political repression. While we may have differences in ideology or chose to use different tactics, we understand that we are in a shared struggle to create a just, free, and liberated world, and that we can only do this if we stand together. We will not let scare tactics or smear campaigns divide us, intimidate us, or stop us from organizing and working for a better world.